From a moral point of view, there is no excuse for terrorist acts, regardless of the motive or the situation under which they are carried out.

Instead of the international police action we had hoped for during the war in Kosovo, there are wars again - conducted with state-of-the-art technology, but still in the old style.

Osama bin Laden, the person, more likely serves the function of a stand-in. Compare the new terrorists with partisans or conventional terrorists in Israel. These people often fight in a decentralized manner in small, autonomous units, too.

If the September 11 terror attack is supposed to constitute a caesura in world history, it must be able to stand comparison to other events of world historical impact.

Historically, terrorism falls in a category different from crimes that concern a criminal court judge.

What was new was the symbolic force of the targets struck. The attackers did not just physically cause the highest buildings in Manhattan to collapse; they also destroyed an icon in the household imagery of the American nation.

From a moral point of view, there is no excuse for terrorist acts, regardless of the motive or the situation under which they are carried out.

Manhattan... capital of the 20th century, a city that has fascinated me for more than three decades.

Since the intervention in Afghanistan, we suddenly began to notice when, in political discussions, we found ourselves only among Europeans or Israelis.

Some of those drawn into the holy war had been secular nationalists only a few years before. If one looks at the biographies of these people, remarkable continuities are revealed.

Each murder is one too many.

The misery in war-torn Afghanistan is reminiscent of images from the Thirty Years' War.

A threatened nation can react to uncertain dangers solely through administrative channels, to the truly embarrassing situation of perhaps overreacting.

In the U.S.A. or Europe there is no realistic way to estimate the type, magnitude, or probability of the risk, nor any way to narrow down the potentially affected regions.

Perhaps at a later point important developments will be traced back to September 11. But for now we do not know which of the many scenarios will actually hold in the future.

The clever, albeit fragile, coalition against terrorism brought together by the U.S. government might be able to advance the transition from classical international law to a cosmopolitan order.

I cannot imagine a context that would some day, in some manner, make the monstrous crime of September 11 an understandable or comprehensible political act.

I consider Bush's decision to call for a war against terrorism a serious mistake. He is elevating these criminals to the status of war enemies, and one cannot lead a war against a network if the term war is to retain any definite meaning.

Global terrorism is extreme both in its lack of realistic goals and in its cynical exploitation of the vulnerability of complex systems.

After September 11, the European governments have completely failed. They are incapable of seeing beyond their own national scope of interests.

Perhaps September 11 could be called the first historic world event in the strictest sense: the impact, the explosion, the slow collapse - a gruesome reality literally took place in front of a global public.

Partisans fight on familiar territory with professed political objectives to conquer power. This is what distinguishes them from terrorists.

Disappointment over nationalistic authoritarian regimes may have contributed to the fact that today religion offers a new and subjectively more convincing language for old political orientations.

The scenarios of biological or chemical warfare painted in detail by the American media during the months after September 11 only betray the inability of the government to determine the magnitude of the danger.

One never really knows who one's enemy is.

The difference between political terror and ordinary crime becomes clear during the change of regimes, in which former terrorists become well-regarded representatives of their country.

The state is in danger of falling into disrepute due to the evidence of its inadequate resources.

The uncertainty of the danger belongs to the essence of terrorism.

Since our complex societies are highly susceptible to interferences and accidents, they certainly offer ideal opportunities for a prompt disruption of normal activities.

Today's Islamic fundamentalism is also a cover for political motifs. We should not overlook the political motifs we encounter in forms of religious fanaticism.

The interpretation of a case is corroborated only by the successful continuation of a self-formative process , that is by the completion of self-reflection , and not in any unmistakable way by what the patient says or how he behaves.

Socialism proposes no adequate substitute for the motive of enlightened selfishness that today is at the basis of all human labor and effort, enterprise and new activity.

He is the best sailor who can steer within fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power out of the greatest obstacles.

Just because scientists have the knowledge to do it, the technology to do it, and some may even have a financial motive or other incentive to do it, does not make it right.

No game in the world is as tidy and dramatically neat as baseball, with cause and effect, crime and punishment, motive and result, so cleanly defined.

Every man without passions has within him no principle of action, nor motive to act.

I think the motive is to establish in federal law the personhood from conception forward and try and alter the Constitution through statute.

It is futile to judge a kind deed by its motives. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.

Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity.

From a moral point of view, there is no excuse for terrorist acts, regardless of the motive or the situation under which they are carried out.

Because impudence is a vice, it does not follow that modesty is a virtue; it is built upon shame, a passion in our nature, and may be either good or bad according to the actions performed from that motive.

America - a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose.

If interstellar travel is as time- or energy- demanding as the above figures indicate, it is far from obvious what the motive for colonization might be.

The motive power of democracy is love.

Do not ever say that the desire to "do good" by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.

I really have no ulterior motive in taking on certain roles. I have no larger issue that I really want to show people. I'm an actor, that's all. I just do what I do.

In my opinion, the form of Government may be different in different countries, according to their circumstances, their wishes, their wants. England loves her Queen, and has full motive to do so.

Some people are born with a vital and responsive energy. It not only enables them to keep abreast of the times; it qualifies them to furnish in their own personality a good bit of the motive power to the mad pace.

I, Alexander B. Campbell, make this statement of the cause of my death to relieve the coroner of the necessity of an inquest, and also let my friends know the motive that led me to take my own life.